S.V.P. of User Interfaces Began at NeXT in 1992, then Apple after acquisition in 1997. Promoted to S.V.P. in Jan, 2003. Headed OS X Aqua interface, then head of iOS development. Fired on Oct, 2012 alongside S.V.P. John Browett, due to rumored conflicts with other Apple departments.

V.P. of iPod Engineering Mark Papermaster vetted in 2007, hired in 2008. Bob Mansfield expressed disdain for Papermaster to then CEO Steve Jobs. Left Apple in August, 2010 in the wake of the iPhone 4 antenna troubles, however it was later reported he left due to "broader cultural incompatibility" and a loss of confidence from then CEO Steve Jobs.

S.V.P. of Hardware Engineering Bob Mansfield, announced retirement on June 8th, 2012. Subsequently returned on August 27th, 2012 under Tim Cook, with reports indicating Scott Forstall's departure played a key role.

In recent years Apple has seen many executives and department heads come and go, some with no replacements.

What is going on???

Kudos for an excellent post.

As much as it seems to frighten the faithful as proven by all the defensive posts, there is a churn that continues at Apple. As compared to last year, they've stagnated. While there's been lots of talk & rumors of new products nothing's come of thus far.

With the relative shake up of product release cycles, that's added to the uncertainty & only made more people familiar with Apples practices, question what's going on.

In the mean time there's been both rumors, talk, and more importantly _action_ on the Android side which has made Apple look old, slow, and stodgy.

Top executives at successful companies are heavily recruited. Success with one company leads potential employers to believe they will bring practices, process, methodologies and key people with them.

While it's true that executive moves at top-level companies are commonplace and are usually motivated by the needs of the employee and the company hiring them, Apple is under the microscope now. Any such moves are bound to be seen in the light of some people's perception that Apple is struggling, which has clearly affected its share price.

Tim Cook refers to great products in the pipeline, but as an AAPL stockholder I'd like to see the proof. Will the iPhone 5S (or whatever it's called) spark new enthusiasm for the platform? Will the rumored iWatch shake up the marketplace?

Why does today's stock price matter? If you're a long term investor and have faith (which you should) in the companies you invest?

That's just it, some long time investors (like myself) are concerned why the cratering of Apple's shares over the past seven months or so has only been met with a dumb, muted silence from Apple management. I'm still faithful but have to admit some of that faith has been shaken. The erasure of close to $300,000,000,000 in market cap is truly unprecedented.

That's just it, some long time investors (like myself) are concerned why the cratering of Apple's shares over the past seven months or so has only been met with a dumb, muted silence from Apple management. I'm still faithful but have to admit some of that faith has been shaken. The erasure of close to $300,000,000,000 in market cap is truly unprecedented.

Silence is part of their success formula. Also time is needed to create and perfect new products. They should have learned that announcing a load of products all at once is not a good strategy. I guess they want to have them released in time for the holiday season. But expect new product announcements in bulk again this year. Maybe with one new category of products altogether.

S.V.P. of User Interfaces Began at NeXT in 1992, then Apple after acquisition in 1997. Promoted to S.V.P. in Jan, 2003. Headed OS X Aqua interface, then head of iOS development. Fired on Oct, 2012 alongside S.V.P. John Browett, due to rumored conflicts with other Apple departments.

V.P. of iPod Engineering Mark Papermaster vetted in 2007, hired in 2008. Bob Mansfield expressed disdain for Papermaster to then CEO Steve Jobs. Left Apple in August, 2010 in the wake of the iPhone 4 antenna troubles, however it was later reported he left due to "broader cultural incompatibility" and a loss of confidence from then CEO Steve Jobs.

S.V.P. of Hardware Engineering Bob Mansfield, announced retirement on June 8th, 2012. Subsequently returned on August 27th, 2012 under Tim Cook, with reports indicating Scott Forstall's departure played a key role.

In recent years Apple has seen many executives and department heads come and go, some with no replacements.

What is going on???

Bertrand had been working for NeXT/Apple at nearly 20 years of service and wanted a break.

Federighi has taken over his duties.

Senior VP of Retail will most likely be revealed at WWDC

SVP Scott Forstall was never a UI guy at NeXT. He worked in AppKit along-side Ali Ozer under the leadership of Peter Graffanino. Scott worked his way into the iOS chief because his squad won out on solution, and his leadership on AppKit warranted a position bump.

Richard Williamson was a non-visible manager at Apple relative to the public. Two dozen other folks can do his job. No offense to Richard.

Papermaster was temporary from day one. He wanted a higher position of authority and didn't warrant it so he left.

Andy Miller was an acquisition merger position, required to stay for a year before leaving. He was waiting for the clock to tick down now that his start up was bought by Apple. He worked on the transition of tech to the Apple ecosystem, then left.

Jim Keller arrived from ATi after AMD bought ATi, saw an opportunity to work in SoC tech and now was hired back at AMD to oversee the handling of AMD big GPGPU and ARM system designs in their ecosystem. Same goes for Raja.

This is all typical of Silicon Valley. The yearly turnover rate at the major players is 30%+.

Loyalty is to who offers the biggest fluff story, salary and stock options. Those that stick around and are loyal tend to be the pioneers who see the greatest payouts, over time.

You better watch AMD... Back during 2003-2006 they were tiptop as far as chip performance. That was of course when Intel got on a run away train with the NetBurst Pentium 4's and D's, trying to push them as fast as they would go. But hey, you'll never know, AMD may be plotting a comeback...

This is bad news. Execs leaving only means they know something is going wrong or bad at Apple and needed to jump ship early, otherwise they'd be part of a failed company and who'd want them then.

Why is this bad news? This guy wasn't some senior executive. I'm sure VPs come and go at other companies all the time but because they're not named Apple and therefore wouldn't generate site clicks nobody cares.

__________________"Terrorism is horrible and must be stopped. All of us must do everything we can do to stop this craziness. These people shouldn't exist. They should be eliminated."— Tim Cook 

Who are all these "lots of people" and is it any more than other tech companies?

I doubt it. We only hear of news of Apple execs leaving... because Apple is the largest tech company by valuation.

I read on Reuters News that a gazillion execs already bailed out of dying struggling crippled about-to-be-raped-by-Carl-Icahn DELL. But we don't really hear about DELL execs leaving do we? That's because this is MacRumors, so no one gives a hoot about DELL news. But naturally since this is MacRumors, we will hear about every single Apple exec who departs, regardless of how significant their post was at Apple.

And we'll also be the first to learn late-breaking news if Steve Wozniak finally wins the season finale of Dancing with the Stars. Sad but true.

__________________The Islamists have an infinite supply of Toyota pickup trucks. This war could take a long time.

I'm wondering if this is the result of giving Ive more authority. From what I understand, Ive, like Jobs, is a tightly-wound pain in the ass. While the company desperately needs one, that would be better for the consumer than the employees.

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Will someone please make a safari extension that gives us back the downvote button?

Also, I've heard from some people that would know that it's pretty bad internally.

My friend left Apple last month due to management issues, a few other friends left last year due to the same issues. I don't know too much about the internals of Apple in the US but in the UK Apple is a terrible company to work for. Senior Apple UK employees are clowns.

I'm wondering if this is the result of giving Ive more authority. From what I understand, Ive, like Jobs, is a tightly-wound pain in the ass. While the company desperately needs one, that would be better for the consumer than the employees.

My friend left Apple last month due to management issues, a few other friends left last year due to the same issues. I don't know too much about the internals of Apple in the US but in the UK Apple is a terrible company to work for. Senior Apple UK employees are clowns.

Are these corporate employees or retail?

__________________"Terrorism is horrible and must be stopped. All of us must do everything we can do to stop this craziness. These people shouldn't exist. They should be eliminated."— Tim Cook 

What this looks like to me is that Apple is getting out of the chip business. A natural progression is for the ARm processor to be integrated into the radio chipset. That means lower cost and power compared to today's iPhone where you have both a Qualcomm radio and A series IC. The story has already been floated that the rumored lower cost iPhone wil use an integrated solution, and it is only a matter of time that it happens on the high-end model as well. The only reason not to do this is if Apple had some secret special sauce from PASemi or special graphics needs. Even then Apple can work closely with Qualcomm to incorporate these or to make an Apple specific chip. One thing Apple doesn't have is the radio capability, so the future is a Qualcomm chip with an ARM in it, not an A series chip with a radio in it.

Adding to this. Bertrand left because the desktop OS as we know it has matured to the point where there's very few left to be done with it. Mobile and Cloud/Virtual computing is where its at now and will be for the foreseeable future.